A concatenation of three letters I sent to a church I left.

Enjoy, and know my standing up for myself is thorough and well-placed.

(Names taken out to protect those who are not meaning to be offensive.)

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I have been back in the area since September, and I have been holding off on volunteering because the personal circumstances surrounding it were ones which I both did not know how to express myself in while also feeling that a church body would not allow me to be heard as a Christian in it.

This ultimately happened when the small groups leader for children’s ministry ignored the portion of her interview to ask me about my faith, and decided a leader could tell her. I wondered how the unique experience I shared with her was one that she could think a peer could get, if it even took her and someone else research to prove that they still don’t understand what I said.

I’ll be clear here: the church is not respectful towards DV survivors and victims who were victim blamed, and thinks the verbiage “we’re all broken people” is effective, when in fact, that is religiously abusive and dismissive of the systemic injustices, if not even a way to divert blame toward the victim.

I joined a small group to gather if leaders were as I remembered them being back in high school (wherein they did not have a clue how to talk to me and so instead of trying to know me, said they loved me from a distance and that was adequate). I have been a very active participant in spiritual and faith groups since I’ve been a teenager. I find that many peer leaders are very kind and helpful, and I am unsure that they would ever be able to give an accurate assessment of my faith. They don’t ask about it. Many people in church culture will feel the need to fight my experiences first and then once they can validate them for me, only then am I allowed to be a Christian to them.

When I first joined the small group, it seemed welcoming and inviting. People were having good and fun conversations around scripture and ways to use it to further understandings of God and the Bible in general. The people seemed warm, inviting, and welcoming, but overtime there became some clear-cut issues. I noticed the following behaviors happening from group members:

1. People would join, seem interested, attend for a bit, and then jump out of the group fairly quickly.
2. There seemed to be three main group members who, if you could not get along with all of, then you would not be accepted in the group.
3. There was an unspoken rule that although conversations could include all perspectives, only the highly conservative data sets were valid.
4. When discussing issues about weaponizing faith, speaking about my lived experiences was seen intriguing at first and then used as a way to discredit my educational and career experience.
5. Many group members would behave aggressively and meanly toward those they didn’t like.

I personally experienced many group members hanging out with one another and inviting each other to events, in front of me, while then bold-faced ignoring all of my invitations to get to know them better. I introduced myself to them and was honest, upfront, and vulnerable with where I was at and what some of my views are. Throughout the course of the group, I began to feel as if people were forming connections with me. It seemed that people wanted to know me – I was willing to meet up with people and engage with them about what they wanted to talk about. I often expressed my career background, my educational background, and parts of my story. People were happy when I asked about them. People would happily talk to me about themselves and all of the things they were going through and their life experiences. I was rarely asked to share (I would respond to questions, sure, but that’s different) and rarely were my experiences validated or treated respectfully.

Recently, a group member (“R”) brought up an issue about a hot button topic of Roe v Wade. While it is not important that you know full details – it is important for background that I have experienced the overturning of this law being used to allow abuse against me to be legally documented as my fault. When a group member expressed the immoralities and such, things were ok. The spiritual and theological arguments were not my concerns. Eventually though, R went into this idea of the law understanding morals. (Which was kind of how this began.) At some point I brought up how Roe intervenes in DV cases improperly and R was confused and mistakenly discredited me. At this point, “K” jumped in and began expressing that she understands why laws around this exist because behaviors like postpartum psychosis are things women need to take responsibility for. I told K that a mental health crisis isn’t a valid thing to have someone expect to know how to handle. K reflects back that as a teacher, many students are violent with psychosis (i.e. school shootings). R and K at this point somehow began to fight with one another, and I needed to intervene, as they were getting into semantics of mental health which neither of them understood or were correct in their carrying out of. I kept on trying to intervene. R and K were so locked into their debate that I had no room to. When I finally could, I was so overwhelmed that I admittedly was overwhelmed. K shouted back at me in retort. I flinched back and let K speak, as requested. When K was done being angry at me for my lived experience with what was K’s definition of violence (which was my story of victim blaming), I tried explaining again how horrible the condition aforementioned is, and why that was an unfair assertion. R and I had a calm debrief, and I spoke to K afterward to see if K was ok. K assured me, “I’m just tired”

Later on, K called this an attack from me that was unwarranted and an unknown trigger of mine.

I have left the group and feel unsafe in wanting a resolution, as the group leader was firm that it was not his place to ask K to own up to harming me.

In addition to what is expressed above, what I would like to talk about is really the underlying issue that the group leader truly sees this behavior towards me as respectful, kind, and caring of me. He reflected back to me recently that people respect me, but that my situation is “unique” (which between you and me is common church language for “you never should have been here and you should have known better than to expect people to think you were worthy of their validation and respect under God”). 

I understand he is not versed in what is spiritual abuse and how to spot bullying of people who have boldly shared their story and are met with ignorant views. From day one, I shared in the group chat [of the small gorup] some boundaries of mine and experiences, hoping it would be clear. I have been expected not only to expect their ignorance, but also not present alternate data to support my stances to demonstrate why their views are harmful and ill-placed (although misinformed, bad data is bad data). I get told it is due to my “hypersensitivity” that they disrespect me. I find that calling a spade a spade does not make you hypersenstive, as it is a spiritual gift of discernment and wisdom to know what is not OK and how to speak up about it.

When I present my data, it is assumed I am bullying them (while I am never apologized to when people behave in manners questioning my experience, intellect, or requirement to be respected). It is expected of me to be held accountable for their anger at triggering me and my clear upset reactions. It is turned around on me, “I did nothing [this is true, there was no apology to me, only one from me] to deserve a response [me standing up for myself and presenting data] at that level”. 

I am not being curt in this, but it is very much a gaslighting modality of behavior to pretend they would not have known such content would be concerning to me and that such language would be refuted with studies and charts, when my theological arguments fell on dead ears, as well. I have been asked to educate them to solve their ignorance – and when doing so – have been told directly and indirectly that my behavior makes them feel unsafe. 

I respect the desire to make the church inclusive, and aim to work with you on this, but need you to understand I do not want to be around people who expect me to put up with their bullying (and do not like my Biblical knowledge, either), and so try to use secular data (which then becomes clear is rooted in faulty science and cursory arguments). 

I do not think they mean it maliciously, sure, we can say that much, and yet, bullying through consistent persistence through denial to change is still bullying.

The woman at the well knows this feeling, and I encourage you to ask me for my opinion on her story before speaking to this concept.

Additionally, I don’t come from a background of faith being “you must be complicit”. My dad is a very well respected MDiv who has since left pastoral work after seeing many dilemmas and problems in church culture and structural issues.

My theological knowledge is very concrete, very expansive, and was formed through learning from the experience of missionaries from around over 150 countries, if not more. I grew up hearing their theological and spiritual stories late at night, while we’d eat their food from their home culture, which they were kind enough to make us.

Many peer leaders (the further of which is not an issue, but rather a point of discussion for the church) want to have discussions around what the Bible says about social issues and how Jesus is supposed to respond (rather, calling us to respond). I don’t think they actually have proper answers for this, as their functional knowledge is rooted either in regurgitation of Scripture (which is ok, but without appropriate guidance and understanding of context and application is cursory) or through demonstrated spiritual abuse (a concept which I find most peers engage in inadvertently but actively).

See, I am forthright in my position that I don’t accept spiritual abuse, misleading interpretations, or faulty analysis of contextualization of scripture. Am I unconventional? Sure? I have no formal biblical training. (I would not fit in with those schools or those communities; of this I am certain, as I have tried.) I am a formally trained data scientist, clinical counselor, and media analyst (who specializes in social attitudes and their relationship to interpretation of media across time). It’s not Christian. I know this.

I’m not the conventional person to say this (my intersectional identities I’m not even sure are allowed in the church), but I do know who God is and how to read and understand the Bible.

The fact is, there’s structural evidence that leadership doesn’t guide people through proper training around how to recognize when they are not upholding standards of leadership. It’s hard to discern, sure.

Yet, it’s not me to be the one to fix “we need to be more inclusive”. I’m not saying I won’t have discussions or conversations, but to put on a victim or marginalized group that they must solve the wrongs done to them is antithetical to Jesus.

Again, the woman at the well, our first credited evangelist, knows this every well.

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XOXO,

Dorothy B